Friday, March 12, 2010

fabric and wrinkles

I seem to be coping with having turned 40 quite well!! no ill effects really......though the below photo I did just crop again as my neck was looking decidedly wrinkly!! When people asked me what I was going to do when I turned 40 - I usually replied with "going to watch the wrinkles develop!"

I am wanting to get more sewing done and have bought a couple of new patterns and found a couple of fabric shops around here that are not run of the mill. Also I have sourced the fabric stashes at the local second hand places!! This however was a lincraft bargain and this is yet another of those tops that everyone seemed to be making and while they are probably onto new trends.....I am still churning out an old faithful. I did however shir around the neckline this time.

My desire to sew more even spurred a clean up of my sewing things as I now have a dedicated sewing/craft room! The clean up was alos spurred on by the fact that I had just ordered a new zipper foot for my machine as I had lost mine. I then couldn't find my teflon foot so had a clean up that entailed upending every box, bag, conatiner, basket etc there was. Thankfully I found the teflon foot.....and the bloody zipper foot!! In different places of course.

Some refashioned tops for my little (getting bigger) sister for her birthday!!

Oh and I am so very excited about this upcoming workshop that I have signed up to do with this very talented lady.

Another topic being discussed at the Shells and Beans household is the whole Private vs State school. Currently the 3 Beans are in a State school and we are deciding what to do for secondary school. Anyone wanting to share their view about this would be very welcome.

5 comments:

I'm sure the 'zipper foot man' would be happy to keep the foot you ordered, or send it back whence it came.

The new top looks very snazzy....styles certainly do come round again, don't they?

Lucky you now with a CHOICE of material shops.....no more tripping over in Lincraft shops (although our local one is now marginally improved, or else the rubbish has been pushed further under the shelves!), or going interstate to Spotlight.

The whole private vs public debate is, I find, very emotionally loaded. The thing is, one of my friends announced she'd be sending hers to a private girls school for secondary school so I had a look at the equivalent for boys (not that we could possibly afford to but just in the spirit of research) and surprised myself by my violent knee-jerk reaction to their website, the gist of which was look at all these over-privileged looking children in their fabulous facility while us poor people sweat it out at the coal-face. It was not a rational reaction at all, but it came straight from my gut and I realised that even if I won the lottery I wouldn't really want to send my kids private, and would probably prefer to send them to one of the "good" public schools where there's cut-throat competition to buy a house in the zone because everyone's desperate to get into them. (Melbourne school system, it's a bit weird if you don't live here). So yeah. That's my can of worms for ya. I don't mean it as a swipe at private schooling either, it's just the personal reaction I had when I pictured sending my kids there.

My kids attend public schools, achieve highly, have friends who are kind and lovely. My own philosophy is that my children need to learn to interact with all people of this world while they are young and relatively unaffected by stereotypical classifications of people. I think that is the opportunity that their education offered. They have a set of skills that make them accepting, resilient human beings and this should see them into their adult lives.

Every child is different and the school selected should best suit the individual child. Generally I find that the making of the decision is BY FAR the most difficult part of this process.

Thank you Tracey and Stomper for taking the time to write your thoughts.

As we are new to the area and don't know anyone with High school aged children we don't know anything about the local high schools - yet. So putting names down is to use as an option later on really.

I went to Public schools and know that I mixed with kids from very different backgrounds which has helped me understand and accept many things in this world. I don't cave to the "good school will guarantee a university place" thinking. Universities are businesses now and will assist all people to get a place.

Still we need to research the public schools too and then decide. The public schools don't provide open days three years before your child attends.

You sure are handy with the sewing machine. I gave up when I realised that I could buy kids clothes cheaper than I could buy a pattern. However you make an art form out of it. I love the man skirt. My husband wore them when we lived in Papua/New Guinea. We called them laplaps.I came to your blog via your mum's suggestion. I believe she has mentioned us to you. My husband, Bill, is from Switzerland and I am a semi-retired teacher.It is a BIG question, state or private school. Even back in the eighties when my girls went to high school, I had the same agonising question to contemplate. After much research and asking of friends and relatives, I decided on an ecumenical, co-ed private school, within easy travelling distance from home.The reasons for my choice were:There is less likely to be badly behaved children in class that distract the teacher and children with getting on with the job of learning.With disruptive children in class a teacher can lose up to 50% of teaching time to behaviour management time.One of my daughters was easily led and I worried she would end up in the wrong group of friends (that sounds awfully snobby, but drugs were exploding on the scene at the time and I worried she would get involved. I know there are drugs in private schools too but I was hoping there would be less in a private school.Private schools can expel students with inappropriate behaviour, It is much more difficult for state schools to do this.Some private schools have better facilities and resources than state schools except the very best like Brisbane State High.The down side of private schools is that the children are a little over protected from all walks of life and can be a bit of a shock when they enter university. If a kid can get through the State system satisfactorily they could be better prepared for the big wide world. But mine survived. It only took them a few months to adapt to uni.Moreton bay college has a very good name.